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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think hospital treatment of pregnant women is pretty shit?

62 replies

TotorosOcarina · 21/04/2011 16:14

Am basing this on my 1st birth in hospital and my treatment today (I had 2 homebirths and midwives who work in the community seem much better than hospital consultants!)

Firstly rang 'community midwives office' this morning as wee had tested + for some stuff ystay and woke up th reaa bad back ache and was advised on MN to get checked out as UTI could have spread to kidneys apparantly.

So call them and really snotty woman told me I need to ring triage, totally unfriendly and abrupt (how am i supposed to know who to ring first?!)
so ring triage. they say see GP.

So go to GP who says todays sample is 'glowing and riddled with allsorts'

i tell her I'm in pain around my back, she takes BP - its low.

She takes pulse, its high.

SHE says I have to go hospital to get checked out.

So I go, I wait, am seen by nice midwife wh does trace.

Then consultant comes in ....

Why are you here, she says - i explain.

why did you ahve a scan yesterday - i tell her they couldn't tell abbies position.

she then tells me I'm not in labour (erm i never said i was)

she tells me the pain im having is not my kidneys.

im not registering cx on the trace.

and asks me again WHY im there vHmm

I then read my notes on way home and it says 'self refered from home' !!! - the bloody GP sent me!!

She made me feel like an idiot, like i was making the pain up - if it werent my kidneys and no cx - then why is my back absoloutly killing me on both sides?!

Just felt really stupid for doing as i was told by GP!

OP posts:
Original poster
TotorosOcarina · 21/04/2011 17:49

i think its uti related, and i think the consultant was just being an arse. everyone else seemed to think it was the right place for kidneys, everyone else seemed to think that the bugs in my wee needed treating with anti-biotics, everyone else seemed to think i needed to be there, but she was totally dismissive and made me feel like i was sat there making stuff up.

Am just praying my homebirth goes to plan and I don't need to go anywhere near the place again!

Am 38 weeks and 4 days and counting Grin

OP posts:
GypsyMoth · 21/04/2011 17:52

i had a home birth with my last one......loved it!

good luck with yours!!

Original poster
TotorosOcarina · 21/04/2011 17:52

sorry lockets,

the midwife visited me on friday and could not palpatate the baby, she thought he was breech. As I'm booked in for a homebirth she wanted to be 100% sure he was ceph s booked me in for a consultant appointment yesterday. the consultant could not tell which way he was either so sent me across for a scan which showed he is ceph and very far down - so they couldn't feel his head.

Totally unrelated really - but it was at that scan appointment yesterday they took a wee sample and first found nasties in it, but over night the 'kidney'(?) pain started.

OP posts:
Original poster
TotorosOcarina · 21/04/2011 17:52

they are lovely aren't they?

i had DS2 at home in a pool and DD on the couch :)

OP posts:
lockets · 21/04/2011 17:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WinterOfOurDiscountTents · 21/04/2011 17:59

confirmatory bias.

And YABVU to take one experience of one person, and use it to decry an entire profession, and a service that you are very lucky to have for free.

jenga079 · 21/04/2011 18:02

Yanbu in saying your treatment today was shit, but yabu in saying treatment of pregnant women generally is shit. I have had a range of medical problems over the last two years and - despite an initial misdiagnosis - have nothing but good things to say about my treatment both here and, randomly, in Spain. The doctors, nurses and consultants I've met along the way have been excellent.

fedupofnamechanging · 21/04/2011 18:10

Winter, the service is not free. It is paid for by our taxes and is only free at the point of delivery. These are professionals and consultants are not paid peanuts, therefore they ought to conduct themselves appropriately. That means not being dismissive of a patients concerns and it means that good manners should come as standard. A person who cannot manage that, has no business being anywhere the public.

We are not 'lucky' to have this service. We pay for it and are entitled to have it professionally delivered.

WinterOfOurDiscountTents · 21/04/2011 18:12

Actually it is free, for most people, because what you get is worth far more than you pay in. Do you have any idea how much an NHS birth actually costs? Bet you don't.
Unless you pay a very very large amount of tax, it is in fact FREE. And you are very very lucky to have it, which you would know if you had a baby in most parts of the world.

fedupofnamechanging · 21/04/2011 18:15

I have had 4 children. I've met some wonderful midwives and very nice doctors. I've also met some shockers. I've seen women treated with an appalling lack of kindness and sometimes with a lack of basic care. Like all professions, the medical one is a mixed bag - you get your very good, but also very bad.

OP, all you can do is question the consultant and not allow them to speak down to you or be dismissive. Difficult when you are in a vulnerable position. It might be worth writing to the hospital and describing your experience or talking to your named MW about it.

PenguinArmy · 21/04/2011 18:18

Actually I do know the costs as I'm in the US (so get the bills) and I can comfortably say that I have paid far more than than the amount it costs. It most people got out more than they got in, then it wouldn't have been sustainable and still running after so many years

fedupofnamechanging · 21/04/2011 18:19

We all pay tax for a lot of things - some of which we use and some of which we don't. So yes, an individual having a baby might receive more than they have actually paid in, but someone who doesn't use the service at all will also have contributed. By the same token, the person having the baby may well have paid tax for something they never use.

So, no it's not free. You, as an individual, may not pay for all that you use, but it has been paid for by the taxpayer as a whole.

plantsitter · 21/04/2011 18:21

'what you get is worth far more than you pay in'

a. how do you know how much op has paid in? She coul earn millions.
b. if the government pays, that's our money - it's called society.
c. even if we should think ourselves 'lucky' that doesn't entitle somebody who is a public servant to be rude and dismissive to a vulnerable person.

People only say patients should count themselves lucky when they're talking about women and maternity care, so they don't have to explain why it's shit.

WinterOfOurDiscountTents · 21/04/2011 18:22

Sure you do. You pay enough taxes to cover NHS births, every doctors appt, prescription charge, procedure, immunisation, the teachers in your childs school, the rest of the school, the free nursery year, the lights in your streets, the police to protect you, the child benefit....and so on and so on. You must be a millionaire, paying all that tax! Hmm

PenguinArmy · 21/04/2011 18:28

Oh I see we've switched from NHS to everything tax related.

plantsitter · 21/04/2011 18:30

That's how we choose to arrange our society, Winter. I don't see why a consultant should feel able to patronise and insult the intelligence of someone he or she is PAID to treat - don't care where the money's coming from.

fedupofnamechanging · 21/04/2011 18:33

There are people paying tax, who don't have DC who will be sharing the cost of services for children. That's my point, it is all paid for by taxpayers and at different times in our lives we lean on the service and at other times we pay far more than we are using.

WinterOfOurDiscountTents · 21/04/2011 18:33

Well, er, in case you hadn't noticed, your tax doesn't have as breakdown as to what it pays for, so you have to take it as a whole.
I assumed that was obvious really.

Haribojoe · 21/04/2011 18:39

Based on what you've experienced YANBU but can I just gently say that I'm a midwife and I know that there are lots of midwives, HCAs and doctors out there giving really good care to women and their families.

Ducks behind the sofa before the flaming begins.

WidowWadman · 21/04/2011 18:42

I've been in hospital as an inpatient twice in this pregnancy so far, and to numerous consultant appointments and found the treatment I received fantastic.

In fact, once this is all over, and I can be sure not to end up in the maternity wing again, I'll make planning to drop off a big box of chocolate or suchlike for the staff, who are nothing but fantastic.

I guess my experience is as anecdotal as yours thouh.

WidowWadman · 21/04/2011 18:50

Btw I think your treatment has been really bad and it sounds very much like the kidneys, hope the antibiotics sort it out quickly.

PenguinArmy · 22/04/2011 03:53

ROFL of "dumbed to down to fuck"

PinkFondantFancy · 22/04/2011 06:33

Whether or not it is 'free' (I'm not even going there, I'll just get cross...)there is no excuse for medical professionals to be rude and dismissive of their patients. winter I think it's patronising that you think we don't know how much the care would cost privately, I know full well what it would cost.

tototos I had a similarly Angry making experience with a hospital registrar a month ago, although not as bad as yours. I'd told the MW that I was struggling to breathe, even at rest, which at 13 weeks she felt wasn't normal so referred me to the ante natal clinic. When I eventually saw the registrar she used the appointment to have a 10 minute tirade about how ridiculous I was for having paid privately to have the cause of my MC investigated. Last time I checked, how I choose to spend my money is my decision, and for me, ruling out anything that might cause a tendency to recur was worth it. And to top it off I was given no reassurance about the breathing.... So anyway, not a case of negligent care, just an irritation really.

I think people's experiences will vary wildly purely based on which individual doctor they see-I've also seen some completely brilliant ones.

onceamai · 22/04/2011 07:12

OP - I think you should have had much better care and am sorry that on this occasion you didn't.

I agree with whoever said it is free at the point of delivery and funded through the tax system.

Winter - the tax system also covers corporate taxation and even if posters do not pay enough income tax to cover the full cost they pay in other ways every time they shop via the profits made by large organisations. We do pay extraordinarily high levels of taxation as a family and rarely use the NHS or other public services but I still expect those services to treat others with the courtesy they deserve and to be fit for purpose.

DirtyBit · 22/04/2011 11:07

I went to hospital last night because my baby stopped moving and I was having some bad pains low down.
It took them six hours to tell me baby was fine, I was fine and send me home with painkillers.
We got there at 6 and it was 8 by the time I was even seen by the midwife, then I was put on a monitor for an hour and a half, then had to wait an hour and a half to see a doctor, then had to wait another 45 mins for my notes to be written up.
I was diagnosed with GD this week and hadn't eaten since 4 o clock, so I was very agitated, I was starving and knackered.
One lovely midwife realised this after my boyfriend mentioned it and brought me some toast, a sandwich and a drink at 11.30, I've never been so glad to see food in my life.

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